First staged as early as 1376, the York Corpus Christi plays were performed annually until the late 1500s and involved as much as a tenth of the city in multiple performances at a dozen or more locations. "Signifying God" shows how organizing the plays served as a political mechanism for regulating labor, and how theater and sacrament combined in them to do important theological work.

From the Publisher:

First staged as early as 1376, the York Corpus Christi plays were performed annually until the late 1500s and involved as much as a tenth of the city in multiple performances at a dozen or more locations. Signifying God shows how organizing the plays served as a political mechanism for regulating labor, and how theater and sacrament combined in them to do important theological work.